The best-laid plans of mice and men often go astray...

The proverbial lines about the plans of mice and men come from the poem To a Mouse by Robert Burns, the eighteenth century Scottish poet. Given that our next den meeting will focus on "Books, Adventures & Storytelling," it seems appropriate to use them here to describe yesterday's meeting...

First, thank you to everyone who participated in our first Tiger Scout den meeting. Overall, I was very pleased with the group and see great potential in many of our scouts who are eager to participate and learn. However, as a few of you were aware, there was an inconvenient mix-up with the school and my son was put on the bus to the Pequannock Boys & Girls Club yesterday right before our meeting started. That caused our meeting to suffer a bit in that I was not able to spend the time I needed to get everything set up and organized for our meeting. Hopefully that won't happen again and there should be better organization of materials, documents, etc. My apologies for all of that confusion yesterday.

While the meeting was relatively productive and the scouts seemed to enjoy themselves, there certainly were a few moments of chaos (which is to be expected when 17 six-year old boys get together) and I recognize that I'm outnumbered and in need of some assistance if we're going to have productive and accident-free meetings in the future. To that end, I am appealing to all of you to volunteer your assistance as you're able. Here are the list of "leaders" I believe I'll need:

* Pack 144 Tiger Scout Co-Leader - I am hoping that one parent can step up and assist me with leading our den. This position would do everything from working with me to plan the meetings to running some of the meetings to representing our den at all Pack 144 functions. This is a critical position and is generally needed for dens that are larger than 8 scouts. If no one can commit to this level, then all positions below will be critical to fill so that our meetings remain productive and accident-free.

* Den Meeting Co-Helpers - I need two parents to volunteer to actively assist me with running each meeting. They would not have to prepare content for the meeting as that will be my responsibility, but they would need to take on responsibility at each meeting for helping me with discipline and keeping the boys focused as well as helping me when we need to break our meeting into small groups (which, given the size of our den, will happen at all future meetings). For example, next week we have three things to accomplish. First, I'll need to individually test each scout on the 7 requirements for earning their Bobcat badge. That cannot be done in a group setting. Second, we need to start making our den banner for the Memorial Day Parade and pack meetings. I know...that seems so far away yet but the Scout program calls for it to be started now. Third, we need to cover the main topic of the meeting which is "adventures in books and storytelling." Therefore, I envision three separate areas needing three leaders.

* Snack Helper - this person would create and maintain a list of scheduled families to provide snacks for each meeting. Every family is expected to volunteer to bring snacks to one den meeting. The Snack Helper would oversee that list and would also ensure that the snacks to be provided are nut-free (we do have one scout with peanut allergies). The snack helper would also set up the snacks during the course of the meeting.

* Restroom Monitor - (some lofty title, right?) I need one volunteer at each meeting to monitor the scouts use of the restrooms and to make sure they get to and from our meeting without incident. Also, this person would make sure that the restroom facilities are left in satisfactory condition after our meeting.

* Clean-Up Helpers - I need two parents at each meeting to volunteer to clean up after snacks and help put the room back in order and pick up/wipe up after the meeting.

Please email me or call me if you can assist. Remember, Tiger Cub Scouting is designed to involve the scout and an adult partner since, at age 6, it is understood that attention spans of children are short and need for discipline and keeping them focused is paramount to making their scouting experience truly rewarding.

Thank you in advance!!!

Akela Ed